The House on Mango Street
The House on Mango Street
Study Questions
Instructions: As we read, answer the following questions IN COMPLETE SENTENCES on a separate sheet of paper.
The House on Mango Street
1. What is the point of view of the book? Why is this important? What information will you not be exposed to in the story?
2. Why does Esperanza want a real house?
3. Look at the description of the windows and doors of the house. How does the diction relate to the life that Esperanza is living?
4. What is Esperanza’s reaction to the comment from the nun?
Hairs
5. Why does Cisneros choose the word “bread” to describe her mother’s hair? What is suggested by these sensory details?
6. Why does Esperanza discuss the hair of her family members?
Boys and Girls
7. Look at the sentence “Until then I am a red balloon, a balloon tied to an anchor” (9). What is the red balloon?
8. What is the connotative value of the word “anchor” when compared to the image of a “balloon”? On the literal level, what is the anchor?
9. On the figurative (deeper) level, what could the anchor represent? (Hint- Look at the title of the chapter for help)
My Name
10. What does Esperanza say about the difference in her name from English to Spanish? (Hint- think about the value of the metals)
11. The narrator’s grandmother did not want to marry but was “carried” off “as if she was a fancy chandelier” (11). What does this simile suggest?
12. The author uses the story of her grandmother to allow Esperanza to make a statement about her own life. What is it? (Don’t just give the quote)
13. What do the new names that Esperanza chooses suggest about her?
Cathy Queen of Cats
14. What is Cathy’s significance in the story?
15. Looking ahead to Esperanza’s actions in the next story, how much value does she place on being Cathy’s friend?
Our Good Day
16. Why does Esperanza like Rachel and her sister Lucy?
17. What does Rachel’s comment “you have quite a load there too” say about her?
18. We learn a great deal about the condition of Mango Street in these few paragraphs describing the bicycle ride the girls take. What is the condition of the neighborhood? But how do the girls feel about their surroundings? Look at the contradiction that is suggested by the phrase “laughing the crooked ride back” (16).
Laughter
19. Esperanza has mentioned several times that she and her sister are very different. In what ways (there are two) are they the same in this chapter?
Gils Furniture Bought and Sold
20. Discuss the contradiction of what the store appears to be from the outside to what is found on the inside.
Meme Ortiz
21. What does the description of Cathy’s old house suggest about Cathy?
22. Many times throughout the story, the author describes houses using personification, as if the houses are extensions of the people who live there. What do Esperanza’s descriptions of her own house say about her? Is this a description that she wants to have of herself?
Louie, His Cousin and His Other Cousin
23. What does Esperanza think of Marin?
24. Why is meeting Louie’s other cousin “important” according to Esperanza?
25. What is significant or ironic about the neighborhood kids “waving as he {Louie’s other cousin] drove away” (25)? (Hint- think about what he was driving away from)
Marin
26. Why is Marin “not afraid” of the boys who yell at her? (27)
27. What does the line “waiting for a car to stop, a star to fall, someone to change her life” say about Marin (27)? Is this the life Esperanza wants for herself? Explain.
Those Who Don’t
28. Who are the outsiders in Esperanza’s neighborhood?
29. How do outsiders perceive Esperanza’s neighborhood?
30. What is meant by the line “this is how it goes, and goes” (28)?
There Was an Old Woman…
31. How did Esperanza feel about the Vargas family?
32. Cisneros suggest that no one seemed to care about the death of Angel Vargas. What diction did she choose to convey that?
Alicia Who Sees Mice
33. What is the contradiction of the word “inherited” to describe Alicia (31)?
34. What does the description of Alicia’s day say about her as a person?
Darius and the Clouds
35. What does Darius say is the sky and clouds?
36. Using your answer in #35, what does it mean that sky always surrounds us?
And Some More
37. Why does Cisneros write this chapter in the style she does? What is its effect?
Family of Little Feet
Close Reading
A Rice Sandwich
38. Why does Esperanza want to eat the in the canteen and her mother not want her to?
39. Why does Esperanza agree that the home the nun is pointing to is hers, even though it is in worse condition than her own home?
40. This conversation makes Esperanza cry while she eats her sandwich. Why? (Hint- go back to the first chapter)
Chanclas
41. What is the effect of her feet swelling like “plungers” (47)?
42. How does she react to dancing with her uncle?
43. Why does she comment on the boy watching her dance? How does this represent a shift for Esperanza?
Hips
44. What do the reasons for hips that Rachel, Lucy and Nenny outline have in common? What does it suggest?
45. What is the contradiction of the hips conversation to what the girls are singing? (Hint- Juxtaposition)
46. What is the meaning of the rhyme Nenny hums while the others are singing about hips? (Hint- “She is in a world we don’t belong to anymore”)
47. What could the jump rope “turning, turning, turning” symbolize (52)?
The First Job
48. What is ironic about Esperanza lying about her age to work at “Peter Pan” photo studio? (Hint- it is an allusion)
Papa Who Wakes Up Tired in the Dark
49. What is the contrast in Esperanza’s description of her father’s “thick” hands and the emotion he is displaying in this chapter? How does Esperanza react to this?
Born Bad
50. Why does Esperanza say she was “born bad” and will “most likely go to hell” (59)?
51. Esperanza is very shy about reading her poem to her aunt. How is her poem like an earlier line “a balloon tied to an anchor” (9)?
52. What does Esperanza say about the window in her aunt’s room? What does this symbolize?
Elenita, Cards, Palm Water
53. What does Esperanza say in the description of the house that suggests that the “witch woman” is not legitimate?
54. Elenita disappoints Esperanza with her prediction, but how is it true?
Geraldo, No Last Name
55. Where have we heard of Marin before and what do we know about her?
56. The point of view in this story shifts. What is the effect or what does the reader gain (details) by this?
Edna’s Ruthie
57. Ruthie has “a house all her own” like Esperanza dreams of, but stays sleeping on her mother’s couch (69). What does this say about Esperanza’s dream? (Hint- how did Ruthie get the house and what is her current mental status?)
Earl of Tennessee
58. What can we infer about Earl from Esperanza’s description?
Sire
59. What words are used to describe Sire’s girlfriend Lois? How is this a contradiction?
60. What is waiting to “explode like Christmas” inside Esperanza (73)?
Four Skinny Trees
61. How is the environment the skinny trees live in like Esperanza’s?
62. How then will Esperanza be like the trees?
No Speak English
63. Why does Mamicita sit by the window?
64. Why does she cry when her grandson sings the Pepsi commercial?
Rafela Who Drinks Coconut and Papaya Juice on Tuesdays
65. How is Rafela like Esperanza’s grandmother and namesake?
66. What is Rafela thinking of outside her window?
67. This is one of several mentions of windows in novel. What are windows becoming a symbol for?
68. Why will she turn to others for “sweeter drinks” (80)?
Sally
What has happened to Sally?
Minerva Writes Poems
69. What does the description on the poems Minerva writes say about her situation and dreams? (Hint: not the poems themselves but how they are written)
70. Both Esperanza and Minerva write poems. Esperanza discusses hers in “Born Bad” but we never learn what Minerva’s are about. What can we assume they are about?
71. Why does Cisneros italicize the “I” in the line “there is nothing I can do” (85)? What does this suggest about the society in which she lives?
Bums in the Attic
72. What does Esperanza say she will do when she has a home of her own?
73. What does it say about Esperanza that she will keep her bums in the “attic”?
Beautiful and Cruel
74. What has Esperanza decided in this chapter?
75. How does this follow the things that we have learned about other women in her neighborhood and their situations?
76. What is the connotative value of the “war” she will be fighting (89)?
A Smart Cookie
77. Why did Esperanza’s mother quit school? (discuss both the simple reason and the bigger picture)
78. What sort of things does Mama do for her hobbies now? (Hint- Look at the connotative words used when she discusses her singing and drawing)
79. What made her change? Is this something Esperanza wants for herself?
80. What is the effect of the word “then” in her line, “I was a smart cookie then”? (91)
What Sally Said
81. Why did Sally come to stay with Esperanza’s family? Who sends her?
82. Why does she go back home?
The Monkey Garden
83. What was Esperanza so angry at?
84. What was the “joke she didn’t get” (96)? (Hint- How did you know Sally wanted to
be there?)
85. What two things does Esperanza do to help Sally that made her feel stupid?
86. Why does Esperanza run and cry? (Hint- it is not that she feels “stupid”)
87. So, what then are the “things” that “have a way of disappearing” in the garden (95)?
Red Clowns
88. What is the tone of this vignette?
89. What happens to Esperanza in this chapter?
Linoleum Roses
90. Why does Esperanza think Sally got married?
91. What does Sally’s husband prevent her from doing? How is Sally’s situation like the other women Cisneros shows us (Esperanza’s grandmother, Rafela, etc)? How is it worse?
92. What does the final image in this story suggest about the rest of Sally’s life?
The Three Sisters
93. Who are the “others” that Esperanza should come back for (105)?
94. What does the sister mean when she says, “You will always be Mango Street” (105)?
Alicia and I Talking on the Steps…
95. Note that Alicia reiterates the comments of the Three Sisters in the Esperanza “is
Mango Street”. Esperanza replies that she will not come back until “somebody makes it better”. Once you have read the end, who will make it better?
A House of My Own
96. How is Esperanza’s dream house a statement for who she is?
Mango Says Goodbye Sometimes
97. How will Esperanza honor that she that “she will always be Mango Street”? (Hint: Think about what the author herself said about her purpose for writing the book!)
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